Hal Helms On Web Development - Philosophy

Working Off the Clock

Fri, 22 Jan 2010 12:50:00 -0400

Recently, I read Ben Nadel's post of his thoughts stimulated by a book that we both seem to be reading, Drive by Daniel Pink. Ben is thinking about the best way of compensating workers. It's a great read with lots of comments. It reminded me of how I stumbled into something that I had pretty much forgotten about -- and I wonder if it would work in a different context. [More]

What We Can All Learn From Ben Nadel

Fri, 18 Dec 2009 11:36:00 -0400

Most of you will be familiar with blogger extraordinaire Ben Nadel. Ben recently posted about a fundamental misunderstanding he had about jQuery event objects. There's something very important to be learned about how Ben approaches problems. [More]

Why You Should Ignore Google's Interview Questions

Sat, 05 Dec 2009 15:28:00 -0400

A recent article in "The Business Insider" here reveals some of the questions Google uses to interview applicants. Google's smart, right? So, we should emulate Google? [More]

I'd Rather Feel Right Than Be Right

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 11:29:00 -0400

Recently, I was reading a post about how Perl blew it (here-- and why it's lost its viability as a web language for new projects. Many of the comments were savage in their response. Yet, ask any non-Perl person and I think they'd agree that Perl no longer has the luster for writing web apps it once did. Given that, why the extreme reaction to what seems a fairly obvious point? [More]

Team Development

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 08:58:00 -0400

I spoke with a friend recently who told me that his company had just hired another programmer to keep up with the work. Good problem. Bad solution. [More]

Regression to the Mean...Spirited

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 15:44:00 -0400

Malcolm Gladwell is a fabulously successful journalist. He's written blockbuster books: The Tipping Point, Blink, Outliers, and What The Dog Saw. I find them both interesting and entertaining. Gladwell delivers a product that provides value and he's reaped the appropriate rewards. A heartwarming tale of success, no? Not so fast, grasshopper... [More]

So...ColdFusion is Dead, Right?

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 11:27:00 -0400

Since I announced that I was going to do future development with Ruby on Rails, I've received some email asking "Is ColdFusion really dead then?" CF developers have been hearing this for years, but I started thinking about the question itself. [More]

Why I'm Moving to Ruby On Rails

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 13:25:00 -0400

Well, this is a hard post to write. After months of investigating, soul-searching, and examining, I've decided to move future application development to Ruby On Rails. [More]

A Secret: Managing the "Exacting" Client, Refire

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 10:08:00 -0400

Yesterday, I inadvertently made public a draft of an unfinished post I was working on. You can read the first part of the post here. Today, we finish the story. [More]

No, THIS is the Right Way to do it

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 06:29:00 -0400

Al: Agile development rocks. Bob: No way. Agile sucks. while 1 == 1{ Al: Rocks Bob: Sucks } Poor Al. Poor Bob. Poor us. Now, this isn't a post about how wonderful Agile is or how bad it is. It's not really a post about Agile at all. [More]

Orthopraxy

Sun, 23 Aug 2009 19:42:00 -0400

Try googling "quote simplicity" and "quote complexity" and you'll find some wonderful thoughts from people like Leonardo da Vinci, Albert Einstein, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Christopher Alexander, and Charles Mingus on the virtues of simplicty and the perils of complexity. But it seems the way of things that they often start out simple and accrue complexity. [More]

On Not Going to CFUnited This Year

Mon, 10 Aug 2009 08:18:00 -0400

On Saturday morning, I had to tell Liz Frederick, organizer of CFUnited that I would not be able to attend. I was very disappointed as I was looking forward to seeing old friends and making new ones, but the decision was a simple, if not easy, one. [More]

The Fetish of Free

Thu, 06 Aug 2009 06:50:00 -0400

fetish: \�fe-tish 1a: a material object regarded with superstitious or extravagant trust or reverence. 1b: an object of irrational reverence or obsessive devotion I just finished reading Chris Anderson's book, Free: The History of a Radical Price. It's quite good. While listening to the book (it's available...for free...at audible.com), I couldn't shake the sense that, for many, "free" software has become a fetish, to the great harm of us all. [More]

Concluding an Experiment on Pair-Programming

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 18:08:00 -0400

Over the last eight days, my colleague, Maciej, and I conducted an experiment in pair-programming. The experiment was inspired by a terrific piece on pair-programming by a highly-respected Java guru, Elliott Rusty Harold. (You can find his article here.) I've done pair-programming in the past, but never rigorously and so wasn't sure whether my affinity for it was justified. Today we concluded the experiment and discussed what we thought of it. [More]

Dancing With the Devil: A First Meeting with a New Client

Fri, 24 Jul 2009 09:54:00 -0400

"We have a 3.00 at Maduro's with a new prospect for a big job," my partner told me recently. The word, "Maduro's" caught my attention: it's a cigar bar just minutes away from our office. I get to do a sales call while smoking cigars? Cool! [More]